abstract universal labor time, 234, 236n14
Acquiring Eyes (Beller), 291
Adorno, Theodor: on amusement, 76; critique of the culture industry, 18, 27, 33n50, 86n44, 246, 247, 289–91; on rationality, 298; on the surfacing of signification, 239– 40n34
advertising, 6–7, 184n6, 207, 234 –35, 302– 4
agency. See individualism; subjectivity
alienation: cinematic appropriation of the logos and, 161–62, 187n26; collective alienation, 29, 253–56; of consciousness, 15; of consumption, 259–61; dialectics of, 256–57; fetishized objects and, 21–22, 216–17; image-commodities and, 199–200; labor theory of value and, 15, 44, 81n10, 135, 203– 4, 229; private property and, 111; of sensual labor, 21, 23, 114; vel of alienation (Lacan), 240n35; of vision, 7–8; voracious eye of capital and, 169–70, 189n46
Althusser, Louis: on ideological state apparatuses, 289; on the imaginary, 10, 25; on overdetermined structures, 121; on the production/reproduction of subjects, 291–92; on the Real as mode of production, 110; theory of subjectivity, 11, 174 –75, 230
Americanism, 124, 147– 48n69, 187n25, 232–33, 241n44, 266
Amin, Samir, 88
Antonioni, Michelangelo, 153
Appadurai, Arjun, 32n44
Arabian Nights (Pasolini), 141n9
art: aura of cinematic perception and, 210–13, 215–16, 237n25; disinterestedness and, 63; fetishization of, 23; futurism, 109; layering of subjectivity in, 181; painting as cinematic gaze, 171–73, 177–81; surrealist montage, 156–57
attention theory of value: abstract universal labor time and, 234, 236n14; accumulated attention as value, 181–82; attention as commodity, 302–8; capitalization of aesthetic faculties, 14; defined, 4 –5, 201–2; in Eisenstein vs. Vertov, 69–70; entertainment and, 138–39; fetishization of art and, 23–24; labor theory of value and, 28; opt-in vs. opt-out models, 308; postmodern capitalism and, 8; productive value of attention, 107–8; sensual labor and, 74 –75, 248–50; types of image value, 207–8; violence and, 269–71. See also spectatorship; visuality
attractions (Eisenstein), 45, 69, 96
audiences. See spectatorship
aura (Benjamin), 210–17, 237n25, 238–39n30–31
authenticity, 215
Balakrishnan, Gopal, 284 –86, 288
Barton Fink (Coen brothers), 193–97
base/superstructure dichotomy, 56, 174
Baudelaire, Charles, 107
Baudrillard, Jean: cinematic reading of, 10; on the circulation of mediators, 115; on the consumption of culture, 262; on the “ecstasy of communication,” 16, 267; end-of-representation argument and, 219; on the political economy of the sign, 300; on revolutionary discourse, 93; on seduction, 69; on semiotic codification, 243; on simulation, 20, 211–12, 238–39n31
Beavis and Butt-head Do America (Judge and Kaplan), 151–55, 175–76, 220–21, 252
belief, 252 Beniger, Jim, 147n65
Benjamin, Walter: on the aestheticization of the political, 63–64, 262; on the aura, 210–15, 237n25, 238–39n30–31, 251; on the cinematic image mechanism, 18, 70–71; on connoisseurs, 2; on the decline of experience, 163, 196, 213, 235n8, 237n27; on information, 213; on the kaleidoscopic sensorium, 107; “orchid in the land of technology” reference, 18, 94 –95, 114, 256; precinematic technologies discussed by, 209–12; on the “second nature” of the techno-mechanical world, 260; Seth Goldstein on, 305; on the shock characteristic of modern life, 147– 48n69; on surgical cinema, 43– 44, 131–32
Bentham, Jeremy, 84n23
Berkeley, George, 266
Bezos, Jeff, 5
Bloch, Ernst, 53
body: adaptation to visual technology, 231; agency as spectral haunting, 139; cinematic extraction of value from, 6, 13, 65, 108, 116–17, 200–201, 205–7, 236n12, 257; globalization of capital and, 198–99, 202; pain as discourse, 132; as productive force in capitalism, 20, 72–73; reflexology and, 120, 122–24, 136, 137, 148n73; revolutionary movement as reclaiming humanity, 101–2. See also movement
Borges, Jorge Luis, 165
Boulez, Pierre, 1
bourgeois economic, 181
Brazil (Gilliam), 301
Bresson, Robert, 105
Bush, George W., 286
Can Xue, 221
capital: abstraction of, 95–96, 243– 44; attention theory and, 4 –5, 7–8; cinema as reassembled unity of, 134; cinematic critique of, 46– 47; cinematic experience as, 104 –5; coordination of nonsynchronicities, 53; dehiscence as repressed violence, 63–64; dematerialization of the commodity, 20–21, 87n48; double unconscious and, 155–56; entrepreneurship and, 170, 187–88n29; expansion of, 201–2, 204 –6; falling-rate-of-profit crisis and, 12, 122, 201–2, 205–6; forms of production and, 105, 143n23; fragmentation of the subject and, 8–9; gaze as, 169–70, 174 –76, 188n35; human agency and, 101–3; industrial production of objects and, 47– 48; industrial vs. consumer capital, 56; market interventions, 68; primitive accumulation and, 284 –85, 294 –95; rationality of, 93, 134 –35, 275–76; subsumption of culture/society to, 10, 24 –25, 26–27, 280n1; three machines of capitalism, 19; transformation of the value form, 208, 233–34; valorization gap, 78, 87n46; violence and, 273–74, 277; Wurzer “filming” thesis and, 62–64. See also circulation; exchange-value; money; production; surplus-value
Capital Cinema (Coen brothers), 193–97, 216
Carlyle, Thomas, 8
Castoriadis, Cornelius, 10
celebrities, 200, 239– 40n34
Chow, Rey, 6
cinema: capital circulation and, 52–53, 58–59, 64 –69, 72–73, 76–77, 129–30, 199–200; cinema-ascinema vs. cinema-as-capital, 111; defined, 29; “film” distinguished from, 22, 58; image production and, 9–10, 58, 137; language compared with, 31n26; role of the symbolic in, 116; as spectacle of exchange, 258–59
cinematic images. See images
cinematic industrial complex, 55, 193–97
cinematic mode of production (CMP): appropriation of consciousness in, 196–97; circulation of value in, 200; commoditization of the visual realm and, 12–13; defined, 1–2, 14; depicted in Man with a Movie Camera, 32n37, 40– 41; depicted in The Strike, 98–99; freedom as specter of, 139; as general theory of capitalized sensorium, 106; Lacanian psychoanalysis and, 157; Metz “second machine” of cinema and, 111–12; spectator labor and, 176–77; table of comparison with Marxism and Psychoanalysis, 183t; technology of cinema and, 19, 32n37; two dialectical hypotheses of, 199–200
cinematic techniques: abstraction of the sensual by, 243– 45; acted cinema, 72, 86n40, 147n66; coordination of nonsynchronicities, 53–54; cutting as industrial process, 41, 133–36, 208–9, 236n17; cutting as vivisection, 136–37, 149n74; empathy with the blind and, 217–18; illusion of movement in cinema, 156; precinematic technologies, 209–10; reflexive chains (Eisenstein), 125; shooting scripts, 96; split images, 42; surgical cinema (Benjamin), 43– 44, 131–32; video, 217–19, 222–25, 258; violent media-scape of Natural Born Killers, 267–68, 273, 276–77, 280–81n6; Wurzer “filming” thesis and, 61. See also kino-eye; montage; technology
circulation: capital circulation as “abstract machine,” 52–53; cinema as, 64 –69, 76–77, 129–30, 258–59; as cutting, 208–9, 236n17; exchangevalue and, 54, 87n48; of images, 49–52, 58–59, 72–73, 77, 199–200, 231; labor theory of value and, 113–14, 202– 4; media pathways and, 13, 114, 213; transnational circulation of capital, 198–99, 236n11, 241– 42n46. See also capital; exchange-value; production; surplus-value
class. See society; subaltern society
CMP. See cinematic mode of production (CMP)
CNN, 24
commodification: as abstraction process, 243– 45; afterlife of commodities, 32n44; automobile as paradigmatic of, 33n50; capital circulation and, 97; commodity fetishism, 9, 21–22, 180– 82, 215–16, 284 –85; commodityobject vs. image-object, 75–77, 114 –15; dematerialization of the commodity, 20–20, 75–76, 87n48, 180, 278; Marx on, 7–8, 67–69; monetization of web content, 234–35; property and, 66–68; of the public sphere, 113; “secret” of the commodityform, 158, 185n11; of violence, 269–71; visuality and, 12–13; Warhol treatment of, 22–23. See also imagecommodities; materiality
Commoli, Jean-Louis, 11
computers: deterritorialization of work and, 1, 74, 112; FreePC, 4; Microsoft, 68–69; programming as moviemaking, 132, 144n39, 230. See also Internet
consciousness: absence in reflexology theory, 135–36; cinematic creation of the unconscious, 18, 26, 40, 70–71, 79, 97, 174 –75; of cinematic images, 47, 50, 82n15, 247– 49; commodification of, 106, 217–22; discontinuity as appearance of unconscious, 156–58, 163–65, 182; double unconscious, 151, 155; Eisenstein approach to, 93, 99; image as condensation, 14 –15; labor theory of value and, 176–77; managerial consciousness (Lacan), 170; Marx on, 82n14; materialization/ dematerialization of, 44 – 46, 55, 94 –95; money as, 144n37; montage as reflective of, 39; perception and, 144n37; production and, 30–31n21, 110, 196–97, 235–36n9; pulsative function of the unconscious (Lacan), 182; quantity of the unconscious, 161–64; relation to totality, 51; repression of reality and, 195–96; as response to cinematic society, 300–301; revolutionary discourse and, 225–26; scopic derivation of the unconscious, 165–73; “second nature” (Benjamin), 70–71; selfconsciousness of the proletariat, 73–74; split-image technique and, 42; sublimation, 152, 179; Vertov concern with, 50, 57, 70–72, 79; Wurzer “filming” thesis and, 63. See also Freud, Sigmund; psychoanalysis; subjectivity
consumption: alienation of, 259–61; Baudrillard on, 262; consumerism, 250; Marx on, 234; of media personalities, 271–72; prosumers (Toffler), 293; spectatorship as consumption vs. production, 112, 232–33, 261
Contact (Zemeckis), 251–55, 257
correlation, 131
credit, 258
Cubitt, Sean, 6
culture: abstraction of capital and, 95–96; cultural forms as social machines, 207; cultural value, 208, 233–34; culture industry, 27, 33n50, 86n44, 176, 288–91; expropriation of the commons and, 294 –95; Iraq War and, 288; multiculturalism, 263
cutting. See cinematic techniques; montage
cybernetics, 141n9
cybertime, 6
Dalton, Kevin, 185n14
Darwin, Charles, 134
Debord, Guy: on alienation in commodities, 22; on the cinematization of the subject, 26; on the consciousness of commodities, 106, 249; on domination by the commodity, 259–61, 278; on the “epic poem” of the commodity, 58, 297–98; on intellectual autism, 155; on representation, 298; on the repression of reality by the spectacle, 195; on revolutionary discourse, 256; on the spectacle, 180, 211, 217, 227, 268, 308
Debray, Regis, 11–12, 30–31n21, 93
deconstruction: cinematic critique of, 16; of God as unity, 291; of presence, 172; of sovereignty, 286–87; subjectivity and, 266; Wurzer “filming” thesis as, 61–62
Deleuze, Gilles: on capital circulation, 53; on consciousness, 162, 225–26; on desiring-production, 152, 293; on the deterritorialization of the image, 105, 246; on the mediation of belief, 252; money as the obverse of images, 106, 245; on the movement-image vs. time-image, 229–30, 235n1; on the organization of movement, 141n9; on simulation, 237n21; on the “society of control,” 139
de-linking, 88
democracy, 132, 241– 42n46, 271–72, 286–87
Denby, David, 281n6
Derrida, Jacques: on “Marx’s injunction,” 88–89, 140n2; on national governance, 286–88; on presence, 172; on sovereignty, 290; on the trace, 240n35; on writing, 298–99
Descartes, René, 67, 148n72, 245, 266–67
desire: cinematic desire, 3; for commodities, 284 –85; desire of the Other, 170–71, 181, 276–77; drive (Lacan), 156–60, 184n9, 221–22; emergence of the imaginary from, 17; envy, 180–81, 189nn45– 46; exchange-value as abstraction of, 255; libido as “desiring-production” (Deleuze), 152; mediation by capital, 217–19; photographic objects and, 168–70; for restored commodity wholeness, 22; “secondary gratification” of the fetish and, 180; sensual labor and, 248–50; surplusenjoyment and, 173–74. See also sexuality
deterritorialization: of cinematic images, 74 –75, 105–6, 246; of consciousness, 94; “deterritorialized factory,” 10, 13–14, 29, 79, 112–15; of intentionality, 161–62; sites of spectatorlabor and, 201; spatial deconcentration, 280n2; Taylorization and, 132
dialectics: of alienation, 256–57; base/superstructure dichotomy, 56, 174; of CMP, 182–83; collapsed dialectic of Natural Born Killers, 276; dialectical image presentation in Vertov, 48– 49, 51; negative dialectics, 27–28
Dienst, Richard, 301
Dirlik, Arif, 236n11
discontinuity, 156–61, 163–64, 182, 184n9, 185n12, 185n14
disinterestedness, 63
distance (Benjamin), 237n25 doublethink (Orwell), 288
dreams, 157, 159–60, 168, 184n6, 185n15, 185n17
Eagleton, Terry, 110
editing. See cinematic techniques; montage
Eisenstein, Sergei: animal/human dichotomy in, 101–2, 122, 126–27, 136; Barthes on, 103; cinema as social production for, 20, 66, 72, 86nn37–38, 93, 107–8, 112–13, 118; dematerialization of industrial process, 95; engineering approach of, 68–69, 122, 124 –25, 130–31, 149n74, 275; film career of, 139; on the ideology of form, 121, 146n55, 146n56; “manufacturing logic” principle of, 97–98, 109; montage-ofattractions technique, 45, 69, 96, 131, 133, 139; on movement, 124 –25; Pavlov and Taylor compared with, 133t; rationality and, 125–35, 137, 148n72; representation vs. presentation in, 109, 118, 125; resistance to the capitalist cinematic sensorium, 106; Vertov compared with, 50, 66, 83nn20–21, 86n38, 99, 129–31. See also Strike, The
Engels, Friedrich, 85n32
entertainment/enjoyment. See pleasure; spectatorship
entrepreneurship, 170, 187–88n29
evolution, 134
exchange-value: aura as, 238n30; bourgeois economic and, 181; cinematic experience as, 104 –5, 110, 214; of images, 76, 245, 248– 49; money and, 66–68; signifier as, 220–21; as site of cathexis, 255. See also circulation; labor theory of value; surplus-value
existentialism, 271
feminism. See gender
fetishization: of artistic works, 23–24, 180, 212–13, 237n24; of commodities, 9, 21–22, 175–76, 215–16; defetishization capacity of film, 44; as invisible labor, 114 –15; labor theory of value and, 47; simulation and, 239n32
film: “cinema” distinguished from, 22, 58; as money, 58, 66–67, 77, 85n32, 86–87n45. See also cinema
“filmic” encounters (Barthes), 103
financialization of the sign (Baudrillard), 300
Fordism, 110, 122, 147– 48n69, 149n77, 208–9
Foucault, Michel, 84n23, 132, 289
frames, 42, 58, 77, 86–87n45, 105–6
freedom: freedom reflex (Pavlov), 119, 136, 139– 40, 145n50, 293; market capitalism as, 273–74; programming and, 132; recuperated as alienated capitalist productivity, 27–29; as specter of capital, 139
FreePC, 4
Freud, Sigmund: on condensation, 15; on dreamwork, 157, 160, 167–68, 185–87nn17–18; on fetishes, 20; on parapraxis, 18; on the pleasure principle, 8, 195; on repression as “cutting,” 196; role of language in, 187n26; sublimation concept, 152, 179; theory of the unconscious, 17–18, 165–66
Friedberg, Anne, 184n6
Gabel, Joseph, 155
gender: of capital and labor, 188–89nn37; feminist critique of subjectivity, 224 –25, 241n38; informal economy and, 242n52; male desire as origin of the imaginary, 17; in Man with a Movie Camera, 70; pre-oedipal consciousness and, 221–22, 225; Taylor worker screening process, 146n61;in Until the End of the World, 221–22
globalization: of capital, 24, 198; deterritorialization and, 74 –75; globe as image, 230; national borders and, 236n11; transnational capital, 241– 42n46
Godard, Jean-Luc, 82n15, 84n24, 115
Godzich, Wlad: on the breakdown of language by images, 15, 18, 150–51, 161, 162–63; on postmodernism, 153; on the temporal fallout of the image, 183–84n1
Goebbels, Joseph, 81n5
Google, 68–69, 234 –35, 302–3, 308
Gorky, Maxim, 127
Gottdiener, Mark, 280n2
Gramsci, Antonio: on Americanism, 241n44; on Fordist manufacturing, 110, 122, 147– 48n69; on repetition in labor, 148n73; on sensation/movement severance, 228, 241n44
Guattari, Félix, 152, 162, 225–26
Gulf War of 1990, 198, 267, 280n3
Gynesis (Jardine), 222, 241n37
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 94, 140– 41n6, 240n35
Heidegger, Martin, 10, 60, 63–64
Herman, Edward S., 147n65
Hollywood: attention theory and, 181–82; business structure of, 32n37, 209; depicted in Barton Fink, 193–94; Eisenstein compared with, 68–69; globalization and, 24; as important industry, 3; television compared with, 152–53
Horkheimer, Max: on amusement, 76; critique of the culture industry, 27, 33n50, 86n44, 247, 289–91; on rationality, 228, 298; on the the surfacing of signification, 239– 40n34
Hughes, Langston, 226
humanity: abstracted humanity in Contact, 255–56; collective agency in Eisenstein, 101, 127; commons as constitutive of, 294 –95; consciousness of human achievement as resistance, 41; human/animal dichotomy, 101–2, 120–22, 126–27, 134 –36, 146n63; machine-human continuum in Vertov, 46, 49; movement and, 125; as site of resistance, 29. See also society
idealism, 266
ideology: Althusser on, 10, 30n16, 291–92; Eisenstein approach to, 50; form and, 121, 146n55; interpellation, 291–92; pedagogical value of film, 81n5; psyche of modern capital as, 174 –76, 188–89nn36–37; simulation and, 214; technology and, 12, 30–31n21; Vertov principle of abstraction and, 50–52
image-commodities: abstraction of, 245; cinematic technology and, 47, 236n17; commodity-object vs. imageobject, 75–78, 114 –15; cultural value of, 233–34; image-commodity in Vertov, 40, 42– 46, 66–67; images as fetishized commodities, 9–10; Media Futures market, 306–8; mediation of capital and, 276; science of, 260–61. See also commodification; images
images: abstraction of capital and, 95–96; appropriation of attention by, 4 –5; breakdown of the logos by, 18, 150–51, 161–63; as cinematic technology, 10–11; consciousness and, 71–72, 247– 49; desire as origin of, 17; economic production and, 24 –25, 47– 48, 75–76; of humanity, 257; language compared with, 15, 31n26, 71–72, 73; of money, 257–58; as paradigmatic social relation, 56; representation- unconscious-commodity convergence in, 217–23; semiotics of, 114 –15, 160–61, 171–72, 185–87n18; social investment as, 232–33; speed of, 150–51, 165. See also imagecommodities
imperialism, 102, 112, 134 –35, 198, 200, 236n11
individualism: commodities and, 44 – 45; individual agency, 131, 161–62, 266–67, 270–71; individual as locus of society (Marx), 81n11; individual experience, 240– 41n36; particularization of surplus-value oppression and, 65; personal names, 239– 40n34. See also subjectivity
infantilization, 241n38
information, 213–14, 230, 237–38nn27–28
intention. See individualism; subjectivity
Internet: anti-capitalist discourse and, 311–12; attention-based business models, 305–8; attention theory and, 5; as cinematic technology, 13, 76, 106; email, 13, 76; general transformation of media pathways and, 283; Google, 68–69, 234 –35, 302–3, 308; monetization of content, 234 –35; as site of spectator-labor, 201; Yahoo!, 5, 308. See also computers
interpellation (Althusser), 291–92
intervals, 39, 45, 49, 51, 80–81n3. See also cinematic techniques; montage
Island of Dr. Moreau (Wells), 102, 134
Jameson, Fredric: cinematic theory and, 16–17; on cognitive mapping, 301; on dreams, 185n15; on history, 109; on the production of visual capital, 24 –25; on the totality of capitalism, 255
Jardine, Alice, 222, 225–26, 241n37
Jaws (Spielberg), 96
Jay, Martin, 161
Keynesian economic paradigm, 149n77
kino-eye (Vertov): acted cinema and, 147n66; capital circulation and, 46– 47; communism as, 72; defined, 38, 43; Eisenstein on, 86n37, 131; Marxist principles in, 51–52, 85n26; montage and, 80n2; Natural Born Killers compared with, 276; production of consciousness in, 48– 49, 57, 247; seeing-eye principle of, 46, 54, 79, 81n13, 82n19
labor: attention theory and, 28–29; capital and, 138; cinematic consciousness and, 110; cottage industries, 13, 112; Eisenstein depiction of, 101–2, 122, 126–27, 136; human agency and, 101–3, 131, 136; informal economy, 231, 242n52; mental vs. manual labor, 82n14, 89; necessary vs. surplus labor, 113, 202–3; as product of capital, 204; scientific management, 122, 123–25, 126, 146n61; social utility as wage, 201; spectatorship as, 1– 4, 11, 14, 69–70, 76–77, 181, 200–201; strikes, 86n38, 88–89, 98–99; Taylor montage approach to, 133–34, 147– 48n69; Vertov depiction of, 49. See also labor theory of value; sensual labor
labor theory of value: attention theory of value and, 28, 113; in the circulation of images, 49, 50–51; fetishized objects and, 47, 212–16; labor as source of surplus value, 176–77; montage and, 39; overview of, 201– 4. See also labor; exchange-value; Marx, Karl; surplus-value
Lacan, Jacques: on aphanisis, 221–22; cinematization of subjectivity and, 26; on dialogue, 177–79; on the discontinuity the subject, 158–60, 182, 185n12, 185n14; on the drive, 156–60, 184n9, 221–22; economy of the cinematic shot and, 59; on envy, 180–81, 189nn45–46; equality of signifiers in, 174 –75, 188–89nn36–37, 240n35; on estrangement of the visual, 8; on the meaning of psychoanalysis, 171–73, 188n30; objet a, 166–69, 173–74, 176–77, 179, 181, 261, 277; painting as cinematic gaze, 156–57, 171–73, 177–81; on the Real, 109–10; scopic derivation of the unconscious, 165–73; on the self as image, 266; on the signification of the image, 171–73, 220–21, 224 –25; on the subject as circular signification, 222–23; on the subject as signifier, 223–24; on sublimation (“I am not fucking” comment), 152; on surplus-enjoyment, 173–74; theory of consciousness, 18–19, 156–58, 182, 184n9, 297
Lampedusa, Guiseppe, 5
Lang, Fritz, 199
language: cinema compared with, 31n26; dematerialization of, 94 –95, 141n9; domination by the imaginary, 15–16, 62–63, 73, 108, 116, 161–63, 220–21; double unconscious effect on, 152, 155; film-language, 17–18, 162; money compared to, 104; primitive consciousness and, 71–72; reading as revolutionary discourse, 232; signification-to-simulation transition and, 96; speed of images and, 150–51; “third meaning” (Barthes), 103; as transferring of revolutionary movement in The Strike, 103. See also logos; semiotics
Lenin, Vladimir I., 99, 118, 201–2
Leonardo da Vinci, 60
Lewis, Michael, 306
Liquid Sky (Tsukerman), 250
Locke, John, 148n72
logos, 11–12, 60–61, 161–62, 225–26. See also language
Lukács, Georg: on history, 6; reification theory, 44, 51, 211, 243; on the selfconsciousness of the proletariat, 73–74, 176–77
Lu Xun, 6
Lynch, David, 221
machines. See technology
Magic Mountain, The (Mann), 153
Mandel, Ernest, 19
Mann, Thomas, 153
manufacturing essence (Pavlov), 123
manufacturing logic (Eisenstein), 97–98, 109
Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov): cinematic technology in, 41– 45; circulation of image-value and, 199–200; consciousness as concern of, 82n14, 217; overview, 37–38, 39– 40; political economy depicted in, 24, 48– 49, 53, 68, 78, 275; resemblances in Contact, 251. See also Vertov, Dziga
Marx, Karl: on abstract universal labor time, 234, 236n14; on alienation by wage-labor, 15, 44, 81n10, 247– 48; animal/human dichotomy in, 101–2, 302; cinematic aspects of, 24, 105; on the circulation of capital, 113–14, 203– 4; on commodification, 7–8, 67–69, 243; on commodity fetishism, 21–22; on consciousness, 74, 82n14, 176–77, 245; Derrida on “Marx’s injunction,” 88–89, 140n2; on forms of production, 48, 75, 143n23; on the historical production of the present, 8, 98; on ideology, 174, 188–89nn36–37; on the individual as the social being, 81n11; on the limited expansion of capital, 201–2, 204; materialist principles of, 94; on money, 4, 57–58, 66, 85n32, 87n46, 144n37, 197, 255; on necessary labor, 113, 202–3; Negri on, 27; on overdetermination, 185–87n18; principle of abstraction in, 51–52, 59, 243; on private property, 111, 247, 299–300; production-consumption relationship and, 234; repressive hypothesis in, 63–64; on ruling ideas, 85–86n35, 176; on the “secret” of the value of commodities, 158, 185n11; on the senses, 85n26, 169; on sensuous labor, 89, 144 – 45nn41– 42; on the subjectification of capital, 174; theory of sexuality, 84n24; Vertov references to, 38–39, 51–52; on workers as products, 134. See also labor theory of value; Marxism; sensual labor
Marxism: as active dialectical critique, 115; dreamwork and, 168, 184n6; invasion of consciousness and, 97; as revolutionary discourse, 173; table of comparison with Psychoanalysis and Cinematics, 183t. See also Marx, Karl
mass media: as a deterritorialized factory, 10, 13–14, 29, 79, 112–15; media bytes, 213–15; media-ocracy, 16–17; media pathways, 13, 114, 213; media studies, 223; models of signification, 225; videosphere, 11–12
materiality: of cinematic bodies, 65; dematerialization of material movement, 97–98, 103; dematerialization of the commodity, 20–21, 75–76, 87n48, 180; of the Lacanian “montage of the drive,” 158, 184n9; Lacanian objet a and, 166–69; Marxist materialism, 94; metaphysics as genealogy of “filming,” 59; Vertov depiction of, 37–38; of visuality, 16–17, 55. See also commodification; metaphysics
Matrix, The (Wachowski brothers), 7, 160, 199, 261
Mechanics of the Brain (Pudovkin), 148n72
media. See mass media
mediation: abstraction (“vanishing mediators”), 59, 76, 138–39, 182; cinema as remediation of objects, 45– 46, 51, 80, 84n24; circulation and, 114; of commodities by money, 57–58; deterritorialization of work and, 112–15; film as money of cinema, 58, 66, 85n32; Goux on the imaginary in economic production, 24 –26; images as capital-media, 276; as key to resistance, 301–2; Lacanian screen and, 170–73; as manufactured continuity, 158–59, 185n13; media as prosthesis for human agency, 266–67, 270–71; media pathways, 13, 114, 213; money as proto-image, 106, 245, 248; Money-Commodity-Money formula, 78; of pain, 132; self-conscious vs. functional mediation, 238n28; technology and, 11–12; transnational capitalism and, 198–99; of value in image-commodities, 57. See also money
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 166, 171, 181, 183
metaphysics, 59, 61. See also materiality
Metropolis (Lang), 199
La Mettrie, Julien Offray de, 148n72
Metz, Christian: on cinema as technology of the real, 109–10, 137; on filmic pleasure, 11, 115–16; on film theory, 16; on “financial feedback,” 244; psychoanalytic investigation of capitalist cinema, 104, 108; on spectatorship, 250, 302; on the three machines of cinema, 10–11, 111–12, 144n38
Meyerhold, Vsevolod, 148n72
Michelson, Annette, 38, 68, 85n26, 148n72
Mirzeoff, Nicholas, 8
modernism: human/animal dichotomy and, 126, 134 –35, 146n63; montage as fundamental technique for, 132–34, 147– 48n69; psychoanalysis and, 165; as transformation of traditional society, 125, 134 –35
Modern Times (Chaplain), 125, 199
money, 4; as abstract “vanishing mediator,” 76, 182, 245; commodities relation to, 33n48, 258; coordination of nonsynchronicities and, 53; exchange-value of images and, 76–79, 87n48, 245, 248; film as, 58, 66–67, 85n32, 86–87n45; forms of, 112, 257–58, 261; mediation process in, 22, 46, 57–58, 76, 144n37; money-image, 217–18, 227; mortgage loans and, 305–6; as the obverse of images, 106, 245; photography and, 4; price and, 58, 77–78; reification and, 44 – 47; thinking money, 196–97, 214, 245; transformation of traditional society and, 135. See also capital; mediation
Money-Commodity-Money formula, 78
montage: assembly-line logic in, 9, 45, 132–34, 147– 48n69, 208–9; capital circulation and, 53–54; cutting as discontinuity, 156–60, 184n9, 196, 235–36n9; Eisenstein montage of attractions, 45, 69, 96, 131, 133, 139; intervals and, 39, 45, 80–81n3; Marxist labor theory and, 38– 42; montage of the drive (Lacan), 156–60, 184n9. See also cinematic techniques; intervals
Morin, Edgar, 3
movement: cinema as transformation of, 108, 141n9; as fundamental to Eisenstein, 96–97, 124 –25; illusion of movement in cinema, 156; movement-image vs. time-image, 235n1; programming of, 132; strikes and, 101–3. See also body
Mulvey, Laura, 17
Mypoints.com, 5
Myspace.com, 235
names, 239– 40n34
narrative, 152–53, 213, 237n27, 238n30. See also storytelling
Natural Born Killers (Stone), 267–79, 280–81n6
Negri, Antonio: on affective labor, 283; on antagonism as capitalist process, 72; on cinematic totalitarianism, 108; on labor, 89; on postmodern capitalism, 26–27; on social cooperation, 8; on social-workers, 199; on the subsumption of society in capital, 280n1
Nelson, Theodor, 144n39
New Criticism, 160
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 60
9/11 (World Trade Center destruction), 284, 285, 288
objet a (Lacan), 166–69, 173–74, 176–77, 179, 181, 261, 277
Orwell, George, 219, 221, 268, 285–87
other, the, 161, 176, 266, 276–77
overdetermination, 121, 157, 185–87n18
painting. See art
Pascal, Blaise, 175
Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 96, 141n9, 162
Pavlov, I. P.: animal/human dichotomy and, 102, 122, 126, 134 –35; Eisenstein and, 69, 117, 133t; evolution and, 134 –35; freedom vs. food reflex, 27, 119, 136, 139– 40, 145n50; population control as legacy of, 131–32; reflexology theory of, 121–23, 126, 127–28, 137; signalization, 109, 133, 224; Taylor and, 133t
Perry, W. J., 142n11
photography: as discourse, 15; language compared with, 31n26; political economy of visuality and, 4; scopic objects and, 168–73, 178–79; still frames in Vertov and, 42
pleasure: as aim of cinematic production, 115–16; control of affect (Pavlov), 119; entertainment as labor, 138–39, 201; of fetishized objects, 22; recuperated as alienated capitalist productivity, 27–28, 76; sensual labor and, 74 –75, 248–50; social investment and, 232–33; surplus-value and, 173–74; visual pleasure as murder, 8–9
Poe, Edgar Allan, 107
poetry, 94
Poindexter, John, 304
Polan, Dana, 3
Polanyi, Karl, 294
postmodernism: art as second-order commodification, 23; domination of the unconscious in, 164; fragmentation of the subject, 8–9, 106–7; gender and, 222; history and, 123; identification with violence, 267–71; Jameson on, 16–17; redistribution of sense, 246– 47; simulation as fundamental for, 105, 239n32; subsumption of culture/society to capital, 24 –25, 26–27, 280n1; transformation of signification in, 219–21; visual economy role in, 24 –25
Potemkin (Eisenstein), 121, 149n74
primitive accumulation, 284–85, 294–95
production: capitalist obscurity of production, 74, 270; circulation and, 114; consciousness and, 30–31n21, 110, 151, 159–60; fetishization as, 212–16, 237n24; Marx on, 48, 102, 143n23; as montage, 235–36n9; pain and, 132; productive value of attention, 108; prosumers (Toffler), 293; sentience of objects of production, 169; social production in Eisenstein, 98–99; social production in Marx, 204; social production in Vertov, 48– 49; social production vs. image production, 52. See also capital; circulation
property: alienation and, 111, 247; capitalized visuality and, 299–300; celebrities and, 200; commodification of the public sphere, 113; commons, 294 –95; gaze and, 181; individual proprietary rights, 304 –5; intellectual property, 234 –35; money economy and, 66–67; representation and, 266–67
prosumers (Toffler), 293
Proust, Marcel, 238n30
Psycho (Hitchcock), 277
psychoanalysis: cinematic machine and, 10–11; cinematic unconscious and, 171–73; discontinuity and, 156–60, 163–65, 184n9; discourse-of-the-Other and, 161, 176, 266, 276–77; knowledge of practice in, 175–76; Metz approach to capitalist cinema, 104, 108; origin of the cinematic imaginary and, 17–19; phallogocentric subjectivity in Wenders, 221–22; Shaviro approach to cinematic subjectivity and, 106; table of comparison with Marxism and Cinematics, 183t. See also consciousness
Pudovkin, Vsevoled, 148n72
rationality: abstraction process, 243– 44; of capital, 93, 134 –35, 298; Eisenstein film theory and, 125–35, 148n72; national sovereignty and, 286–87; Pavlov reflexology and, 135; postmodern “end of reason,” 246
reading, 232
reality: cinema as technology of the real, 104, 108–10; cinematic hyper-reality as, 256; enclosure by capital, 10; images/unconscious substituted for, 161–64; marginalization of, 171, 194 –96, 235n3, 278–79; Reality-Industrial Complex (Rheingold), 119, 144n39; reality principle (Freud), 194 –96; technology-free immediacy of, 10; virtual reality, 7, 230
reflexology, 119–28, 135–36, 145n50
Reich, Robert, 139
reification: dematerialization of the commodity, 20–21, 46– 47; general phenomenology of capital and, 109; objectification of the Other, 277; Simmel theory of, 44 – 45; Warhol treatment of, 22–23
representation: consumption of personalities and, 271–72; end of representation, 217–23, 239– 40n34, 288–89; movement-image vs. time-image and, 235n1; prisons and, 292–93; of production in cinema, 118, 125, 137; reflexology and, 109; simulation and, 239n32; stylistic freedom and, 262; the unrepresentable, 220–22. See also semiotics
resistance. See revolutionary discourse
Retort Collective, 284–88, 294
revolutionary discourse: alienation of, 253–56; attention theory and, 28; capital cooptation of bodies and, 13; capitalization of the resistance to capitalism, 88–89; consciousness as fundamental to, 73–74; discontinuity and, 158, 163–64, 185n12; Eisenstein revolutionary cinema, 98–99, 103, 107–8, 127, 131, 275; general intellect and, 295–96; manufacturing logic and, 97–98; media business model inadequacies and, 308; mediation and, 301–2; models of signification and, 225–26; negative capability of language and, 163, 187n23; psychoanalysis as, 173; reading as, 232; Soviet cinema and, 20; spectacle as focus of, 291; spectatorship and, 11; strikes, 86n38, 88–89, 98–99; Vertov revolutionary cinema, 42, 46, 50–51, 73–74, 275–76
Rheingold, Howard, 119, 144n39, 230
Robocop film series, 25, 236n12
Romney, Jonathan, 280n6
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 84n23, 247
Sack, Warren, 14
Said, Edward W., 75
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 17, 161, 166–67, 183
Scarry, Elaine, 132
Schmitt, Karl, 287
science: Pavlov principles of organization, 127; psychoanalysis and, 171, 188n30; Reality-Industrial Complex and, 119, 144n39; scientific management, 122, 123–25, 126, 146n61
screen, the (Lacan), 170
securitization of attention, 305–8
self. See subjectivity
Semel, Terry, 5
semiotics: of cinematic images, 185–87n18; of commodity-images, 116; cybernetics, 141n9; dreamwork and, 157; equality of signifiers, 174 –75, 188–89nn36–37, 240n35; exceeded capacity of signs, 15–16; general concept of the signifier, 223; image-perception as signification, 114 –15, 160–61, 171–72; indexicality as capitalist image production, 19–20; movement-as-signification paradigm, 96–97; political economy of the sign, 300; psychoanalytic theory as symptom, 175–76; of the scopic object, 167–69, 187n26; simulation, 21, 96, 105, 213–17, 237n21; surfacing of signification, 219–23, 239– 40n34; symptoms as false continuity (Marx), 158; “third meaning”(Barthes), 103. See also language; representation
sensorium: adaptation to visual technology, 231; assembly-line logic and, 9, 26, 29, 201; capital circulation and, 74 –76; commodity affect and, 21, 95; extent of capital penetration of, 70; kaleidoscopic sensorium, 107; postmodern simulation and, 105. See also sensual labor
sensual labor: alienation of, 21, 23, 114; cinema and, 9, 89; images and, 78, 248–50; Marx on, 89, 144 – 45nn41– 42, 275; pleasure and, 74; postmodernism and, 6. See also labor; sensorium
September 11 (World Trade Center destruction), 284, 285, 288
sexuality, 84n24, 152, 221–22. See also desire
Sharrett, Christopher, 280n6
Sheridan, Alan, 224
shooting scripts, 96
signifier/signified. See semiotics
Simmel, Georg: on abstraction, 243– 45; on mediation, 22, 44 – 45; on money, 76, 104, 260–61; Seth Goldstein on, 305; on tools as forms of consciousness, 40– 41
Simon, John, 281n6
simulation: Baudrillard on, 21; Deleuze on, 237n21; as excess of reference, 239n32; postmodernism and, 105; signification-to-simulation paradigm shift, 96; visuality and, 213–17. See also representation; semiotics
Smith, Adam, 202
Smith, Barbara Herrnstein, 146n56
society: capitalist social production, 204, 270; cinema as organizational paradigm, 111; collective alienation, 253–56; collectivization of production, 44 – 45; Fordism, 110, 122, 147– 48n69, 149n77; fraternal solidarity as revolutionary society, 100–101; growth of bureaucracy, 147n65; inequality vs. asymmetry and, 188–89nn36–37; mediation and, 132; national sovereignty, 236n11, 286–87; participatory social production, 8, 30n15; political economy of social organization, 90; social commons, 294–95; social investment, 232–33; social totality, 45; stability of production and, 143n23; stages of human development (Taylor), 125; television as collective device, 84n22; transparency of, 50, 84n23; weak citizenship, 285. See also subaltern society
spectacle: alienation and, 217; becomingcommodity of the world and, 278; defined, 211; as occupation of life by commodities, 261–62; revolutionary discourse and, 291; simulation and, 214 –15; unconscious of, 220–22; of violence, 271, 277; World Trade Center destruction and, 285
spectatorship: audience quality assessment, 28; capital circulation and, 69–70, 76–77; cinematic gaze and, 178–79; cinematic production of audiences, 54 –55; cinematic technology and, 11, 230; as consumption vs. production, 112, 232–33, 261; “directed creation,” 17; in Eisenstein vs. Vertov, 66, 86n38, 99, 129–30; futurist painting and, 109, 143n32; as labor, 1– 4, 11, 14, 181, 200–201, 302– 4; reflexology and, 126–27; sensual labor and, 74 –75, 248–50; simulacra and, 214 –15; valorization gap in, 78. See also attention theory of value; visuality
Staiger, Janet, 209
Stalinism, 121
star system, 3
Stone, Oliver, 267–79, 280–81n6
storytelling. See also narrative, 238n30
Strike, The (Eisenstein): alienated posture of, 121; approach to spectatorship in, 127; depiction of human agency in, 136; as a historical formation, 97–98, 109; immateriality of others in, 277; montage-ofattractions in, 96–97, 149n74; overview, 90–91, 99–101, 142n11; resistance against capital encroachment in, 89, 113. See also Eisenstein, Sergei
subaltern society: disguised wages in, 242n52; global pauperization, 198, 236n11; mediatic violence and, 270; operation of capital in, 257; peasantry as animal worker/spectators, 126–27, 134 –35; representation and, 262–63; subjectivity in, 221. See also society
subjectivity: aphanisis (Lacan), 221–22; aura of cinematic perception, 210–17, 237n25, 238–39n30–31; cinematization of, 23–24, 26, 159–60; critical theory as, 223–25; “death of the subject,” 292; discontinuity of the subject, 158–61, 185n14; Eisenstein selfprivileging and, 146n56; evacuation of the other and, 276–77; gaze and, 167–81; Lacanian screen and, 170–73; layered in the artistic object, 181; media as prosthesis for human agency, 266–67, 270–71; Pavlov experiments and, 119; “Piagetic error” of subjectivity, 224 –25; postmodern fragmentation of, 8–9, 106; psycho-social nexus of Fordist manufacturing (Gramsci), 110; reconceptualization of the imaginary and, 10; relation of machines to, 83n20; televisual subjectivity, 274, 277; violence/ annihilation as substance of, 267–72, 277–78; voracious eye of capital and, 169–70, 189n46. See also consciousness; individualism
subjugation, 131
surplus-value: attention theory and, 205–6; cinematic technology and, 54 –55; circulation and, 114; diminishing rate of, 138, 149n77; expansion of capital and, 204 –6; exploitative value extraction and, 112–13, 202; labor as source of, 176–77; repressed violence of capital and, 64 –65; surplusenjoyment and, 173–74. See also capital; circulation; exchange-value; labor theory of value
Tarantino, Quentin, 281n6
Taylor, Frederick Winslow: animal/human dichotomy in, 120–22; Eisenstein and, 117, 131, 133t; on film relationship with bodies, 109; industrial design theories of, 119, 137; Pavlov and, 133t; use of montage, 133–34. See also Taylorization
Taylorization (scientific management): CMP compared with, 199; effeciency principle of, 122; Eisenstein and, 109, 120, 126, 133t; falling-rate-of-profit crisis and, 205; montage and, 208–9; overview, 123–25; reflexology and, 120, 133t; as socialization, 199; Vertov and, 275; worker screening process, 146n61. See also Taylor, Frederick Winslow
technology: alienation and, 33n50; bureaucracy and, 147n65; consciousness and, 40– 41; Eisenstein vs. Chaplain on, 125; equipment-free immediacy and, 93–94; industrial technologies in Vertov, 129; machines as cultural forms, 207; mechanical reproduction of objects, 44; mediation and, 12, 30–31n21; print technology, 5–6; spectatorship and, 11; steam technology, 19, 99, 103; subjectivity and, 83n20; three machines of capitalism (Mandel), 19; three machines of cinema (Metz), 10–11, 111–12, 144n38. See also cinematic techniques
television: attention theory and, 5; cinema as precursor to, 13; as core experience in Beavis and Butt-head, 151–53, 176, 220; deterritorialization of work and, 112–14; narrative as dispensable in, 152–53; spectator-labor and, 206–7; as symbolic violence, 301; televisual subjectivity, 274, 277; Vertov on, 84n22; video, 217–19, 222–25
Terminator film series, 25, 229, 242n48
terrorism, 263
Third World. See subaltern society
time: abstract universal labor time, 234, 236n14; cybertime, 6; movementimage vs. time-image, 227–29, 235n1; temporal fallout of images, 183–84n1; temporality, 2–3
Time Machine, The (Wells), 227–28
Toffler, Alvin, 293
Total Information Awareness System, 304
totalitarianism, 2, 19, 74, 108
Towards the Dictatorship (Eisenstein), 97–98, 142n10
Ultraviolet (Wimmer), 309
unconscious, the. See consciousness
Until the End of the World (Wenders), 217–28, 241n37
urban sprawl, 280n2
use-value. See exchange-value; labor theory of value
utopianism, 121
value. See attention theory of value; exchange-value; labor theory of value; surplus-value
Van Gogh, Vincent, 23
Vanilla Sky (2001), 160
vel of alienation (Lacan), 240n35
Vertov, Dziga: on acted cinema, 72, 86n40, 147n66; ambitions for cinematic consciousness, 50, 57, 70–72, 80; critique of money, 45– 46; dialectical image presentation in, 48– 49; Eisenstein compared with, 50, 66, 83nn20–21, 86n38, 99, 129–31; exposure of commodity production in, 17, 20, 24, 47, 66–69; “factory of facts” approach, 66, 68, 79, 147n66; industrial technologies in, 129; Marxist techniques of, 38–39, 55, 57; montage as fundamental technique for, 39, 80n2, 275–76; remediation of objects, 51, 84n24; seeing-eye principle of, 46, 49, 50, 51, 54, 82n13, 82n19; on television, 84n22; treatment of nonsynchronicity, 53–54; Wenders compared with, 217. See also kino-eye; Man with a Movie Camera
videosphere, 11–12 violence, 63–65, 267–74, 277, 301
Virilio, Paul, 107, 142n11, 207, 255
visuality: aura and, 215–17, 238–39n30–31; blindness, 217; commodification and, 12–13, 45– 46; distance (Benjamin), 237n25; gaze, 166–81; history of term, 7–8; industrialization of, 9; materiality of, 16–17, 38– 42; persistence of vision, 209–10; property and, 181, 189n45, 299–300; violence and, 279; visual capital, 200; visual economy, 19–24; visual fetishes, 231. See also attention theory of value; spectatorship
warfare: capitalism and, 273–74, 280n3; permanent war, 287–88; as symbolic violence, 301; as televisual process, 266, 278–79; World Trade Center destruction and, 285
Weber, Max, 125
Weiner, Norbert, 305
Wells, H. G., 102, 134, 136, 227–28
World Wide Web. See Internet
Zabriskie Point (Antonioni), 153
Zizek, Slavoj: on cinematic engagement of the unconscious, 17; on Freudian dream analysis, 157; on ideology as practice, 175–76, 292; on Lacan as a structuralist, 185n14; Marxist psychoanalysis of, 158, 185n11; on surplusenjoyment, 173–74